About the project

The crew of STS-135, from left commander Chris Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim pass before the shuttle Atlantis as they arrive for a press briefing during the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test at the Kennedy Space Center. (Smiley N. Pool : Houston Chronicle)

In the early days of the American space program, the astronauts who blazed a trail into space were larger than life. Their names became household words. Alan Shepard, the first American in space. John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. Neil Armstrong, the first to walk on the moon. As we near the end of the space shuttle program, many Americans would be hard-pressed to name even a few of the hundreds of astronauts who flew aboard the orbiter over the past three decades.

Other than perhaps the crew of the first mission, the first American woman in space, Sally Ride, or the crews lost in the Challenger and Columbia accidents, most have flown in relative anonymity. Part of the reason is sheer numbers – more than 130 missions since 1981. Part of the reason is the nature of the missions – not lofty targets like reaching the moon, but launching and repairing satellites, conducting experiments and other less glamorous activities. Still, the work was just as dangerous – more than a dozen of them died – and the technology that put them there just as amazing.

But this era of space exploration is coming to a close – the shuttles will be retired, programs will be shut down and people, both at NASA and its supporting contractors, are losing their jobs. In the future, there is only uncertainty.

To document this final chapter in history of the program, Houston Chronicle photojournalist Smiley Pool has been embedded with the crew of the last shuttle mission and has been follow the them through training – and their lives away from it – as they complete the program’s final mission. His mission: To put the space shuttle astronauts – and these final four – in its historical place as the successors to Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.